The Christian Century

c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) If kids brought home grades like this, they'd be grounded.

The Secular Coalition for America rated all presidential candidates on nine issues, including church-state separation, civil rights, evolution and taxpayer funding of religion.

A recent spate of campus controversies involving professors who made provocative statements about Muslims shows one of two things: a decreasing tolerance for inflammatory speech, or how easy it is for academics to get into trouble. Or perhaps a little bit of both.

Good news for Mitt Romney: he won the New Hampshire GOP primary. Bad news for Romney: evangelicals remain reluctant to support him. Rick Santorum got 35 more votes than Rom­ney in Iowa although no official winner was declared because of missing ballots from eight precincts.

A Catholic bishop in the Los Angeles archdiocese has resigned after admitting that he is the father of two children, both now teenagers. The Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the resignation of Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala, 60, who was born in Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles.

c. 2012 Religion News Service (RNS) How viable is a political party with the word "atheist" in its name?

Troy Boyle, a corporate legal representative for a finance company, thinks very viable. Last March, he and a friend founded the National Atheist Party, which they believe to be the first American political party organized on the belief that God does not exist.

American Episcopalians upset with their denomination's acceptance of gay and female clergy can now convert to the Roman Catholic Church while keeping many cherished traditions in a special new U.S. diocese that was established on New Year's Day by Pope Benedict XVI.